Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1)

hand, stubbornly staying with me no matter what anyone said he was allowed to do. He never let go, as if he knew I would go spinning off into the void that loomed just beyond him. In the ambulance, his wide shoulders shielded me from the flashing lights and featureless faces. In the emergency room, his presence protected me from the bustling people and beeping alarms. His touch was the only thing I felt, until someone stretched my right arm out, holding it down firmly.
Cold fluid rushed into my veins, numbness chased the pain away, and I surrendered to it.
It seemed like days later that I opened my eyes in a hospital room, but in reality it was just the morning after the accident. Memories of the accident and its aftermath, the emergency room ordeal of X-rays and examinations, all seemed hazy and dreamlike. I wished for someone to tell me it had all been a terrible dream, but there was only my mother, sitting in a chair by the bed. Her sad eyes and the tight resignation of her mouth told me it wasn’t a dream.
I would not be able to breathe a sigh of relief and get back to living my life as it had been.
I would have to begin to live with this horrible thing I couldn’t even bear to think of. “She’s dead.” I said the words out loud, two sharp jabs straight into my heart.
My mother dipped her chin just once in an almost-nod, an I-can’t-bear-to-say-this nod, and blinked back tears. “Yes.”
The bright, avaricious voice of a talk show host blaring from the television set on the wall seemed obscene. How could anyone, anywhere in the world, remain unaffected? Everything I’d ever worried about, obsessed over, loved or hated, seemed miniscule compared to this.
My ruined career, bah.
My crappy love life, so what?
Why had I spent a moment crying over the loss of my stupid dream, or Ben, or anything my life was lacking? At least I had a life.
And somehow, the knowledge that I still had a life only made me feel worse.
“Turn the television off.” My voice sounded as beaten and scarred as I felt.
Mom reached for the remote control attached to the bed rail, and with a click, the room went silent except for the faint hospital noises beyond the bare walls.
Mom tried to fill the void by talking. “The doctor said your left arm is badly bruised but not broken, unless there’s a tiny hairline fracture too small to see on the X-ray. That’s good news, right? You’ll have to wear a sling for a couple of weeks, or after that if it starts hurting, but you can...”
Mom’s chatter went on but I tuned it out. I hurt. God, I hurt. Every inch of skin, every muscle, every bone. My left arm, broken or not, throbbed. My chest, bruised by the seat belt, ached. My blistered skin, burned by the airbag, stung. And I was hot, sweating underneath a forced-air heating blanket. “Ugh.” I tried to kick the thing off.
“Are you hurting?” My mom put her cool fingers on my forehead.
“Yes. Everywhere.”
But none of those physical discomforts hurt as badly as the pain of Melody’s death.
I couldn’t even spare a thought for Ben, or for Melody’s children, left now without a mother. I could see them all standing outside the wall I’d built around myself. But I couldn’t let them in. I couldn’t bear their grief on top of my own.
Mom put something in my hand. “Push the button if you need more medicine for the pain.”
She must have pushed it for me, because I felt an immediate softening. I still hurt, but I didn’t care. Turning away from Mom’s soft, concerned face, I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep. The pain medication buoyed me up, and for a while I floated just out of reach of my hopeless thoughts. Then the hospital sounds faded and I escaped into a dreamless sleep.
When I woke again, I was alone.
The orange vinyl chair was empty. I could tell it was daylight outside because shards of light pierced the closed blinds and slanted across the walls. Even when I closed my eyes, those lines sliced across the inside of my eyelids.
I wanted to cover my eyes to block out the light, but even my good arm felt like lead, so I turned my face away from the window. In the shadows, a man sat in the ugly orange chair’s green twin. I widened my eyes, then narrowed them to focus. Ben?
He sat forward into the dim light thrown from the slatted blinds.
No, not Ben.
Ian. Recognition and awareness collided in my brain. I remembered his strength shielding me, his hand holding mine. “Ian?”
“Lass....” His deep voice was soft as a sigh. He rose in one smooth move, lowered the bed rail and sat facing me. One of his long legs aligned with mine from hip to knee.
I moved my right hand to rest on his jean-clad leg, surprised at how weak I felt. How much effort it took to move even that little bit. “You found us.”
He covered my hand with his. “I heard the dispatch call on the scanner in my office. Wilson and I went to help with the search.”
“I’m glad it was you.” Why I said it, I don’t know, maybe the painkillers talking. But it felt right, and I didn’t mind letting the words lie there between us.
He squeezed my hand. “I’m glad, too.”
“I wish...” A sob threatened to escape, but I swallowed it down.
He brushed my hair away from my face, gently touched a butterfly-sutured cut on my forehead, trailed his fingers down the swollen, bruised flesh between my left shoulder and elbow. “How’s your arm?”
“Bruised, not—” Without warning, my throat closed up. Tears rose like hot lava from a burning pit of regret inside me. I swallowed them down, turned my face away and closed my eyes. Ian’s hand covered mine where it lay on his